I’ve done the math: 66 days since the Oct. 6 election. That means we’re two-thirds of the way towards that magic milestone — our first 100 days in power.

What do we have to show for it?

The optics are good. Substance, not so great. And the outlook potentially bleak.

We dodged a bullet by declaring war on bullying, allowing us to trump the news cycle during the opening session of the minority Legislature. Now MPPs are back home, silenced until February. Thanks to the bitter squabbling behind the scenes, no committees are in place to hold public hearings — for the first time in decades.

The opposition’s blood is boiling. If this were Parliament Hill, the prorogue protest brigade would be setting up Facebook pages and clogging the airwaves.

Luckily for us, with only 14 shopping days until Christmas, the public isn’t paying attention to Ontario’s democratic deficit. For now.

But even if we remain below the radar during the holiday season, I fear we’re sleepwalking toward a spring surprise. The next test will be our March budget.

Boss, you hired me to brainstorm about tomorrow, not waste time worrying about yesterday. So here’s the outlook:

The Tories are spoiling for a fight. Without NDP support, our budget will be dead on arrival.

Our government will be, too.

Remember what Bill Davis told us after we lost our majority: Politics is the art of the possible.

It’s time to start planning for a possible confrontation in March. Apart from all that bad blood between us and the opposition, the budget measures will leave even more blood on the floor thanks to program cuts and restraint measures.

We need to pacify the NDP so they can show people that everyone is doing their part — not just poor people and public servants, but corporations. By the way, so do we. Why exempt profitable corporations from all our rhetoric about belt-tightening?

We need to cut a deal on corporate taxes — by freezing our planned rate cuts.

The NDP have been bleating for years about the need for higher corporate taxes. But so did we. Our own 2008 budget pointed out that combined federal-Ontario corporate tax rates already were lower than in all 50 U.S. states (page 16). Then in 2009 we suddenly reversed ourselves by announcing the 14 per cent corporate rate would be reduced to 10 per cent in 2013.

The world has changed. We are bleeding red ink. The deficit won’t be eliminated until 2017-18. By then, we’ll have more than $300 billion in accumulated debt to pay down.

Despite the hothouse atmosphere, Horwath has been trying to lower the temperature. She suggests we press the pause button and freeze the rates now in place — a general corporate tax rate of 11.5 per cent, and a 10 per cent rate for manufacturers and processing — and not phase in any more reductions.

We need to lay the groundwork now for the March budget. We need to tell our finance minister to stop warning that head offices will flee to Calgary if we don’t drop our corporate taxes (Alberta also has no sales tax, are we going to kill our HST next?). And when he argues that B.C. has a lower corporate tax rate, he neglects to mention that they dumped their business-friendly HST.

The NDP’s suggestion: rather than give corporations a blank cheque, let’s reward them with specific tax credits for creating jobs. Boss, you were just saying the other day that setting targets is the best way to get results, so this is right down your alley.

You’re always saying, “there’s never a wrong time to do the right thing.” This is the right time to recalibrate, because we’re hemorrhaging revenues with the depressed economic outlook. And we can truthfully tell business they’re still getting a good deal: “You have to talk about the entire bargain you’re getting.”

This is about fairness and optics, tactics and timing. And surviving. Enjoy the holiday, it won’t last long.

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